Fusion for Energy

The EU Sustainable Energy Week is Europe’s most important policy conference on energy. The 2018 edition featured more than 60 conference sessions exploring the latest thinking on sustainable energy policy, led by representatives of the European Commission, industry organisations, local authorities and NGOs. It offered the opportunity to the more than 3,000 participants to discover innovative policies and projects for clean, secure, sustainable energy and build alliances for future cooperation. This year’s conference took place in Brussels from 5-7 June.

Fusion and ITER featured in the programme of the conference, highlighting the growing recognition of the important role it would be called upon to play in the sustainable energy mix of the future.

Chaired by Jan Panek from the European Commission, the session brought in speakers from the ITER Organization (Shira Tabachnikoff), F4E (Juan Knaster), EUROfusion (Tony Donné) and the European Commission (Michel Claessens) and attracted a public of non-specialists. The speakers explained in detail what fusion is, how it works, the promises it holds and how far we have still to go to conquer this unique energy form. The progress of the ITER project, the next big step on the road to fusion, as well as the economic and industrial benefits arising from investing in the development of fusion were also detailed.

Fusion fitted very nicely in the “Lead the clean energy transition” –  the theme for the 2018 edition of the EU Sustainable Energy Week. Fusion has the potential to become a suitable complement to renewables as a safe, abundant and environmentally responsible energy source.